I would like to see some indication of a device's status when it is powered on in the item shortdesc that appears in rooms an inventory. This could be a different color, bolding the shortdesc, or even just adding the word 'ON' to it somewhere.
The e-note could be flipped upside down. Could be bright inside.
There's so much context with each individual powered object, they it differs to the item instead of the game having to check a variety of variables every time you 'look'.
But purposefully creating a 'problem' that requires an item to improve QoL seems a bit backwards to me. Just my 2 chy.